I was watching the Brady Bunch and Bobby and to a lesser degree Jan were complaining about getting hand-me-downs.
I was just wondering, for those of you who had to wear your older sister/brother’s clothes, what did you think? Were you sick of it? Did you hate it? Did it not bother you at all?
I didn’t get hand-me-downs as my brother was 10 years older than I, so there was nothing saved to hand down to me, though my mum was a big garage sale person (this was the 70s) so I did get a lot of hand-me-downs from other people
I didn’t care one bit what I wore or who wore it prior
Never had any, except maybe some toys. Only daughter with 3 older brothers. Mom didn’t shop at garage sales, and when she went to charity rummage sales she was working vs. shopping. She did bring home some nifty and ancient books for me though.
Ugh, hated them. I’ve always been picky about what I wear, and mostly the hand-me-downs from cousins consisted of Big Dogs t-shirts, ratty polos, flannel, and fat pants. No thanks.
Didn’t bother me. I’m the only girl but I used to get clothes from my cousin. She had some nice stuff!
I should add that we weren’t well off. Second hand clothes were better than none. Of course, now that I’m moderately successful, I’m a clothes horse. And shoes - don’t get me started on how many shoes I have. Growing up, we got one pair of “school” shoes and one pair of tennis shoes a year and had to wear them all year no matter how ratty they got. I’m making up for lost time now…
No older sisters, but the daughter of a friend of my mom’s used to give me her stuff. She was a few years older than me but we were the same size, which was why I was the first girl in 7th grade to wear a straight skirt (with a little kickpleat at the back).
I used to look at Judy’s cute outfits when I passed her in the halls and wonder when they’d come down to me. Trouble was, my mom and her mom had a falling out when I was in 9th grade, and that was the end of me being halfway fashionable.
I do remember some hand-me-downs in grade school that were pretty awful – dresses with dead elastic on the sleeves, faded fabric, stuff that was too big for me. And a winter coat that looked like something taken from a WWII soldier (if the soldier had weighed 60 pounds). I still wonder where mom found that ugly coat.
Hated them. My older brother was 4 years older, so I’d get the clothes that kids would just start to make fun of. At least that stopped when Mom got a steady job.
I am three years and one day younger than my brother, and I hated hand-me-downs. Everything he got was brand new, and everything I got was used and worn.
I didn’t like the clothes my Mother picked out at the store any better than the ones handed down to me by friends of the family. IT was the '70s, and Mom was really into the Puke green and gold color scheme. :Barf!:
To this day she seems to revel in buying me things that are the worst possible color for me. I try to talk her out of it, but it’s hopeless.
They didn’t bother me, I have a sister who is two years older than me, and a cousin who is two years older than her, so clothes were often passed down through the three of us.
It was always good stuff though, and I had new clothes too, so I never really thought about it much.
My mom was painfully frugal and had no sense of fashion, so hand-me-downs from my cousins were always a treat. They might have been a couple of years out of style, but they were still far cooler than any of my clothes. The hand-me-downs from my sister, obviously, were no better or worse than my own stuff.
This! My big brother was super cool (think gangly version of Jean-Claude van Damme, plus mullet) and I was a tomboy, so I happily wore anything of his up until my teens. Then he shot past six feet and his castoffs became way too big.
I don’t think I reflected much on the fact, it was just the sensible thing to do. And it started a lifelong passion for thrift shopping and clothes swapping.
I liked them. I’m the oldest, but I very occasionally got hand-me-downs from my cousin, who’s a couple years older than me, and had much cooler taste than I ever did.
I hated, on the other hand, the thrift store finds my mom used to buy me. Not that I have anything against thrifting - just that my mom and I have never seen eye to eye on clothes. I think she has pretty terrible taste, to be honest. (Don’t tell her I said that.)
Having two older sisters, as a kid I felt like I never had a new anything. My poor younger sister, though - she really never got new anything. It was fun when a box of clothes would come into the house from an outside source, though (usually cousins) - figuring out who could fit into what. I don’t have a problem with second-hand clothes now, though - I shop at thrift stores sometimes, but I mostly gave that up when the prices there started to almost match new prices.
